What is wrong with technology recruitment?

I’ve recently spent some time talking to recruitment agents and HR managers. I thought I’d collect my experiences and share them publicly. This is a critique aimed at agents. Please, try to follow at least some of the rules I’m laying out here. I get it: under harsh economic conditions, every placement matters, every referral fee counts. But that doesn’t mean you should blindly fire off irrelevant job offers to candidates.

Misspelling of names

I know my first name isn’t from the English-speaking world. It looks a bit like “Thomas.” But it’s really not hard to type five letters correctly. If you’d reject my CV for spelling mistakes, at least have the decency to spell my name right. And if you’re going to misspell it, at least stick to the same misspelling across emails:

Hi Tamos, I haven’t heard from them yet but will let you know as soon as I do… Thanks, ‘The Agent’

From: Tamas Piros To: The Agent Subject: Re: Job opportunity

Hi Agent,

I hope this email finds you well. I was wondering whether you have any updates for me with regards to this opportunity. I’m in a training all day today and tomorrow so I probably won’t be able to take your phone call but I’d appreciate if you would get back to me via email.

Thank you and regards, Tamas

From: The Agent To: Tamas Piros Subject: RE: Job opportunity

Hi Thomas, The role is a UK based role, with time spent in their office, at home and with clients (90% will be London based). The other role will cover European based clients and involve more travel. ‘The Agent’

Not cool.

The “I will get back to you by tomorrow” theorem

No you won’t. We both know it. Look, I understand you’re waiting on your client, and your client is busy running a business. They might be slow to respond. But you should know that by now. So when you tell me “I’ll definitely get back to you by tomorrow,” I expect a call the next day. Of course it won’t come. If I want an update, I have to chase you, but you’ve vanished. Can’t reach you by email. Can’t reach you by phone. Three or four days later, an email arrives saying the client either liked my CV or didn’t. Please, build in the time it’ll actually take. Tell me you’ll be in touch within a week. That’s fine. At least I know my phone not ringing tomorrow doesn’t mean something’s gone wrong. You’ve still got six business days.

Windows != Linux

You found my CV. You love it. You ring me up: “I have your CV in front of me and I think I’ve found a wonderful opportunity that’ll suit your profile.” You then spend ten minutes arguing with me about why I won’t be able to commute to this job. Only after that unnecessary warm-up do we actually discuss the role. I ask what’s involved. Turns out it’s a Support Analyst position: Win2008 Server, Oracle and C/C++. At this point, I want to hang up, but let’s finish this properly. I tell you I’ll give you a thousand pounds if you can find any of those technologies anywhere in my CV. I’m a Linux person, with web development experience, using MySQL and PostgreSQL. Don’t follow up with “oh, can’t you do the others then?” because you’ve already burned fifteen minutes of my life. My advice: read my CV three times. And if you think I could potentially do the job, just ask upfront: “Are you interested in managing Win2008 Servers even though your experience is in Linux?” I’ll say “No.” Done. We both move on.

Make notes of what I tell you

You’ve genuinely found me an opportunity. I’m interested. Time to set up a call with the client. You ring me for a briefing (which is genuinely helpful, I can prepare). I give you my schedule: I’m available all week except Monday between 3pm and 5pm. If you call me four hours later to say you’ve booked the client call for Monday at 3:30pm, I’ll be disappointed, and you’ll lose credibility fast. This is basic organisation. Write down what I tell you. Or just reread your emails before booking.

Do you have 10 years of experience with HTML5?

I understand that most of the time you’re handed requirements and questions straight from your client. But if you’re a technology recruiter, you should know some basic facts. If you ask for 10 years of hands-on commercial experience with HTML5, I’ll tell you I don’t have it. Not because I haven’t worked with it. Because it didn’t exist for 10 years. HTML5 became official in 2012 (and had been around a bit longer, but still not a decade). Equally, I’ve never used Oracle 5.0 or MySQL 10g. Ever.

All that said, I understand these problems aren’t always the agent’s fault. Sometimes you’re just passing along bad information. But there’s a lot of room for improvement. Check some facts. Think about whether the requirements actually match someone’s experience. I hope technology recruitment will change, and at least some of these problems will disappear for good.